Transition towards integrated strategies for flood risk management without institutional change : A case study of Colombo, Sri Lanka

Wicked problems like urban flooding require simultaneously meeting multiple objectives within complex systems. To achieve such a goal integrated flood risk management is often proposed as a solution. The integrated management paradigm has developed a set of principles that are necessary for transitions toward the paradigm. Horizontal and vertical coordination across different governmental sectors and scales is one major characteristic of the integrated management paradigm. A second important element is participatory planning and governance at the lowest appropriate scale. Flood risk management regimes of the cities present disabling or enabling conditions in order for the cities to transition toward integrated management. These two conditions are determined by the institutional setting in the city that underlies the organisations responsible for flood and climate risk management. Based on this understanding of transition toward integrated risk management, conceptual frameworks such as the three pillars of Scott’s institutional theory and multi-level transition frameworks are utilised to analyse the changes that happen in the city’s flood risk management regime. This study focuses on the changes in flood risk management in Colombo from 2010 to 2019. The focus of this study is on three sectors: climate adaptation, flood management and urban planning that are considered to play a vital role in integrated flood risk management. In this study, I argue that in reality, the city’s transitions are complex and a product of its socio-political history. Therefore, some of the changes happening in the city might not be captured by analysing only the institutional change that is supposed to be a driver of regime change and is often emphasised in the literature that studies the transition of cities toward integrated management. This study demonstrates a more complex process of transition where drivers of integrated strategies are socio-political conditions, narratives of development and organisation patronage rather than enabling conditions related to institutional settings. It also shows a more complicated reality in the Colombo compared to what is assumed by the conceptual frameworks where transition toward an ideal is considered possible and to follow the principles of coordination and decentralisation. On the contrary, this study shows a city that has achieved some of the integrated solutions but without achieving the principles set out in integrated management paradigms. Due to the lack of institutional changes in Colombo, the long term sustainability of the current flood risk management paradigm becomes questionable. It is due to the fact that one of the most pronounced drivers of change, organisation patronage, is inherently instable thus making it difficult to achieve change that is institutionalised. At the same time socio political drivers make rapid change possible. In order to institutionalise the change driven by the socio-political conditions, it is becomes important to address the institutional pillars and achieve the principles of the integrated management paradigm that include decentralisation and coordination